Statistics and open data

11 July 2013

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) is conducting an inquiry into statistics and open data in Government, with a focus on the progress of the Government in implementing its Open Data strategy. This is part of PASC’s programme of work on statistics and their use in Government.

The Government’s definition of “Public data” is “the objective, factual, non-personal information on which public services run and are assessed, and on which policy decisions are based, or which is collected or generated in the course of public service delivery”. Public bodies collect an enormous amount of this data, across a number of different sectors and in great detail. These datasets have, for the most part, not been available in the public domain. The inquiry will look at why open data is important, and how effective the Government’s work has been to open up more data.

Further details of the inquiry are available on the PASC website inquiry page:

As part of a scheme to encourage paperless working and maximise efficiency, the Committee is piloting a new web portal for online submission of written evidence. The web portal can be found on the Committee’s web site: